


laura hollis, private investigator

by TheFifthCircuit



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Accidental Baby Acquisition, Bodyswap, F/F, Gen, Misses Clause Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 10:13:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2808713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheFifthCircuit/pseuds/TheFifthCircuit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Look, Laura isn’t saying that running an investigative firm is the perfect, most logical way to make some money, but when the only place on campus that’s hiring is the super creepy coffee shop, running your own business starts to seem like a weirdly good option.</p>
            </blockquote>





	laura hollis, private investigator

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lescousinsdangereux](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lescousinsdangereux/gifts).



Look, Laura isn’t saying that running an investigative firm is the perfect, most logical way to make some money, but when the only place on campus that’s hiring is the super creepy coffee shop that sells eyeballs in drinks like they’re scoops of icecream and perpetually smells like earwax and cabbage, running your own business starts to seem like a weirdly good option. 

Okay, so maybe the words “perfect opportunity” and “best idea ever, right?” had actually come out of her mouth when she’d pitched it to Carmilla in the cocoa-fueled, sleep-deprived haze of turning in _another_ paper, but when an idea still stands up at 10am, it’s totally solid.

“It kind of looks like the schoolwork is already trying to kill you, sweetheart,” Carmilla had drawled, eyebrow raised. “You really want to be adding anything else to that list?”

Laura hadn’t managed more than a mumbled “‘s’not like everything hasn’t already tried that” before faceplanting into her pillow and rolling over to sleep.

\---

She tries to design the business cards herself. Her first effort is… not great. Laura can do fantastic things with Paint, but there’s fantastic and there’s this.

Perry looks at Laura’s laptop screen with a weird mix of pity and concern.

“It’s-” she pauses, clearly searching for something a little more diplomatic than slapping a “you tried” star on Laura’s forehead and leaving. (Laura giggles internally at the mental image. It’s not very Perry.) “It’s certainly unique, sweetie. But I think you could go with something a bit more… subtle.”

Before Laura can defend her attempts, Perry is hastily tapping away at the computer and moments later there’s a very nice, professional looking layout for a card that reads “Laura Hollis, Private Investigator.”

Laura is pretty sure that Perry somewhat disapproves of this idea, but apparently her tendency to clean up everything she can extends to graphic design too.

“There. That’s much better.”

When Perry leaves, Laura adds “no case too weird” down the bottom in small print, and wonders how long it’s going to take her to regret it.

\---

Which is, more or less, how she ends up here:

“Well, hey there, cutie,” drawls a voice. A voice that sounds a lot like Laura’s, but is definitely, definitely not her.

“Carmilla, now is really _not_ the time to be checking yourself out.”

Carmilla smirks, and Laura wrinkles a nose which is not her own. It’s only been three and a half minutes, but Laura doesn’t think she could ever get used to seeing facial expressions that are decidedly not her on her own face. 

(Oh god, what if she has to get used to it? What if they’re stuck this way forever? Why did she ever choose to take on a case that she’d been told upfront involved mischievous fey folk? Mischievous _body swapping_ fey folk. They hadn’t even had any stupid arguments, or said anything with that particular kind of irony that comes back to bite you.)

“Come on, cupcake, live a little. How often do you get a nice three hundred and sixty degree view of yourself, anyway?” 

She spins Laura around once, twice, and then Laura feels like she’s dizzier from their sudden closeness than any of the whirling. Her breath catches in her chest. She feels as though, with everything they’ve been through, Carmilla’s proximity shouldn’t make her quite so shivery. It’s something of a consolation to note that Carmilla seems equally breathless. (And hey, is that even possible for vampires?)

The situation resolves itself all too quickly when LaFontaine bursts into the room with a vial of fairy dust and blows it in their faces. The world spins even more quickly than it had a few moments ago and Laura has the mother of all headaches, but she does appear to be very definitely back in her own body.

“You’re welcome,” LaFontaine says, and dashes out of the room. Laura can just make out something along the lines of seeing an angry pixie about a repayment as they leave.

“Well,” Laura mutters to herself, “that was disappointingly anti-climactic. Kind of not how I imagined that scenario playing out in my head at all.”

When she lifts her head, she sees the corners of Carmilla’s mouth go up.

“Kinky.”

\---

Investigative work is also how Laura discovers a great newfound dislike for swimming. And large bodies of water generally.

Her father had made her take classes when she was younger, apparently heedless of the fact that they lived nowhere near the ocean, or indeed _any_ large bodies of water. So she knew how. She just hadn’t thought that she’d ever really need it. Until a sizeable lake appears on campus.

Complete with merfolk.

It’s not a big deal. The merfolk are friendly enough. Certainly friendly enough to ask for Laura’s help (albeit through a proxy who can actually get to Laura’s room).

And the work itself is fairly routine. After a few questions here, a little poking around there (Laura’s reputation for nosiness has definitely begun to precede her), she comes to the conclusion that weird relationship problems extend far beyond the bounds of being human. And she’s solved her case in almost no time at all.

The problem is that this is Silas University. Something is always going to interfere.

Laura swims out to the middle of the lake to rendezvous. Rianna, the mermaid who hired her, can’t come onto land, so (especially given what she’s being paid) Laura is more than happy to compromise to give her final report.

She can see Carmilla on the shore, a little impatient, but with that half-smile that, well, Laura hesitates to call it fond, but it kind of is.

The water is cold. Really cold. 

Laura is sure it wasn’t that cold a few moments ago. She splashes around a little. Surely flailing your limbs is the way to get warm, right? But she’s not getting warmer, and it’s not getting warmer either.

Rianna surfaces slightly to Laura’s left, her tail flicking water in a graceful arc as she does so.

Laura, teeth chattering, tells the mermaid her findings. Rianna seems pleased with the outcome, or at least about as pleased as you can be when you’re asking those sorts of questions.

“I should-- I should go,” Laura says, although her lips don’t quite move in the manner she’d been hoping they would, so it comes out concerningly garbled.

Rianna’s eyes widen somewhat as she looks at Laura with -- what does she have something on her face? -- oh, no, right, concern. 

“Right, lass, we’re getting you back to land right now,” she says. And Laura has said this before but Scottish mermaids in Styria? It’s kind of weird. Go figure. Although the lake did just appear with very little fanfare. Weirder things _have_ happened.

“I can swim,” Laura tries to say, but it’s kind of difficult with the sudden mouthful of water that comes from being propelled through said water by a mermaid.

“Laura?” Carmilla sounds worried. “Laura, what the hell, you’re turning blue.” 

Laura tilts her head up to see Carmilla grabbing a towel.

“Why on earth did you decide to meet out in the _middle_ of the goddamn lake,” Carmilla mutters.

It was a gesture, Laura wants to say, but what comes out instead is “‘m cold.”

There’s a towel around her shoulders immediately, and Carmilla’s arms around her. It’s nice, but it would be nicer if she could stop shaking.

They make it back to the dorm, and then there’s hot chocolate and heaters and _warmth_.

She gets a weird round of sighs of relief from everyone else in the room (Carmilla, Perry, Danny and LaFontaine - because apparently this was cause for concern) when she starts up with the questions. Look, that was so not a normal lake temperature drop.

When they find out that the Alchemy Club was “just testing” their new freeze ray on the lake (and actually, someone is going to have to have an ethics talk with them), all Laura can think is doesn’t the university already have enough weird stuff going on without having to deal with mad science too?

\---

And then investigative work is also how she ends up here:

“Shhh. You’re going to wake the demon changeling child!” Laura says, glaring at Danny and Carmilla with all the withering force she can muster, and watches with extreme satisfaction as the bickering dies down. 

The demon changeling child, for its part, looks contented and perfectly innocent in Laura’s arms, the red of the child’s skin clashing with the light blue of the blanket it is currently swaddled in.

Laura has come across a lot of weird cases since this business started up, involving things like:

\- The worst ever (and best ever) game of truth and dare. Mostly just a game of truth after looking into more of the Alchemy Club’s suspicious practices ended up with Laura’s entire floor being dosed with some kind of truth serum.  
\- Drawing up elaborate plans and making terrible not-to-scale models in order to break into the Alchemical Sciences building and ~~steal~~ retrieve a temporal shift generator.  
\- A mildly awkward “let’s pretend we’re dating” scenario with Danny in an attempt to lull their target into a false sense of security.  
\- An _extremely_ awkward “let’s pretend we’re dating” scenario in which Carmilla and Danny try their best to look like a couple in love, rather than bickering not-quite-friends, mostly holding it together because Laura splashed out on fancy earpieces and is hissing at them through said earpieces. (Why is it that Laura never manages to arrange it so that she can just have more makeout time with her girlfriend instead?)  
\- Some strange event involving buttered toast, three toy robots and a _lot_ of string that Danny swears up and down happened, but Laura can’t remember a single thing about.

but this, above all else, is the one she’s felt least equipped to deal with.

If this were a fanfiction, which it isn’t (although given all the things that have been happening in her life lately, Laura has occasionally entertained the thought), then Carmilla would turn out to be, seemingly against her nature, miraculously good with children, and this would all blow over without a hitch. As it is--

“Are we sure-” Carmilla says, “that the solution to this problem isn’t just killing it?”

“And here I thought you’d be against murdering the demon child just because it’s a demon,” Danny says, “You know, because-”

“Because I’m a vampire? And I wouldn’t want other people to be unfairly prejudiced towards me and, oh I don’t know, tie me to a chair with rope and garlic and then starve me?”

“Yeah, that.” Danny says without a trace of irony in her voice.

“It’s the _child_ bit I’m less fond of.”

The baby starts to make gurgling noises. It’s kind of cute. (Normal human baby gurgling noises, Laura would like to point out. They probably wouldn’t even know it was a changeling if it didn’t have the red skin and unsettling glowing eyes.)

Then the baby starts to make crying noises. That is significantly less cute.

Danny smiles at the baby, before pulling a truly impressive number of bizarre faces. The baby reaches out and Danny offers her pinky finger for the small child to grab.

“There we go,” Danny coos. “Isn’t that better?”

The baby stops crying.

“What?” she says, looking over her shoulder at Carmilla. “I’m great with children. Eldest of five.”

“You’re in charge,” Carmilla says.

Ordinarily, Laura would consider objecting here, but actually, Danny is really good with the baby, and they just need to look after it for long enough to let a certain staff member (Laura considers this patronage as a tacit acceptance of her business) follow up their leads about where her original child is being kept.

Yeah, the demon changeling child is actually the beloved baby of Professor Shadel, who (although quite upset at the disappearance of the baby that she’d given birth to) had also grown quickly very attached to its replacement.

Babysitting had never been intended as part of Laura’s investigative services, but here they are.

She carefully passes the baby over to Danny, jiggling the child in a way that she thinks is supposed to be comforting as she does so.

Two hours later, Laura’s makeshift office (which, okay, is actually just her dorm room, and she really really needs to expand) is considerably fuller. For a start, there’s her, Danny, Carmilla and the changeling baby. And then there’s Professor Shadel, Professor Shadel’s wife, one of the demons who took the baby, said baby, and several curious onlookers (all of whom are shepherded immediately out of the room by Danny).

There are some very complicated legal arrangements that Laura understands almost none of, but after quite a few tears, a bit of arguing and some contracts signed in blood, she gets the impression that there’s going to be some sort of joint custody going on and everyone looks relatively contented.

Laura pockets a tidy and convenient fee, thanks Danny for her help, and snuggles up in bed next to Carmilla.

She still thinks an investigative firm is a totally solid idea. Ridiculously tiring, but solid. The people of Silas University need her help, and when she’s not fighting terrifying evil (which really, is only every second Tuesday now), well, she’s here to do just that.


End file.
